Pampas Grill at Night.

This Argentinian buffet style restaurant hits a spot every once in a while. It's salad bar with beets, potato salad, fried yucca, chicken stroganoff, collard greens are my favorites. For meat lovers, the various seasoned and skewered steaks and chickens are to die for

Cheap but Hip: Sunny Blue Onigiris

Ever tried onigiri on steroids? Onigiri, those Japanese rice balls often eaten with sprinkled preserved plum or vegetable flakes, is tasty, but pretty stark. Sunny Blue, the Santa Monica establishment added fresh premium ingredients such as miso beef, curry chicken, shitake mushroom, and mayo shrimp, fresh mixes them into the onigiri on the spot and wraps them in a sheet of seaweed to make a "made to order" delectable snack for the customers. Each onigiri is about $3.50 and is a satisfying snack in itself. Two or three of them makes a meal, although you might be hard pressed to not want to try each of the different flavors.

Now, Sunny Blue has a second location in Culver City, on Washington Blvd. Try it. Have a ball.

Sunny Blue Santa Monica
2728 Main St
Santa Monica, CA 90405
310.399.9030

Sunny Blue Culver City
12608A Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90066
310.751.6306

Miser's Meal: Costco's Rotisserie Chicken

When it comes to buying a pre-roasted chicken for dinner, Costco's wins hands down. The perfectly seasoned and rotisserie chicken comes in a plastic container juicy and tasty. The price is the best anywhere: $4.99 for the last few years now. Price-wise, you can't even get a fresh whole chicken for $4.99. Taste wise, I haven't tasted anything better. You'd think that Whole Foods with its fancy organic roasted chicken should win the taste test right? Not even close. By comparison, Whole Food's chicken that costs at least $8.99 (or more if it is organic) tastes dry and unseasoned. It may be more healthy (but I doubt it), but it does not taste great.

Albertson's rotisserie chicken isn't bad, and the price is comparable to Costco's, but to get the freshly roasted ones, you often have to wait for the new batches to just come out. Otherwise, the ones sitting under the heating lamp tends to get dry. Costco's seem to have fresh ones coming out all the time.

Of course, I bet the Costco rotisserie chicken is a loss leader for the chain because every time I head to Costco thinking I'll get a $4.99 chicken, I end up spending over $200 on everything else. Oh well. Those things are needed too.

Unhipster's Hangout: Cheap lunch at Jackson Market

My husband worked at Sony's for over a decade but didn't know about Jackson Market just south of Sony until I took him there. Jackson Market is a cool sandwich and salad place with a nice assortment of artisan sodas and cookies. Wedged in a residential part of Culver City just south of Washington Blvd and Motor, Jackson Market's permit to operate in that location must have been grandfathered in since the area is obviously residential with no other commercial businesses in sight.

In the market, you can have the folks behind the counter prepare for you made to order sandwiches: On a piece of pre-printed check list, just make your selection of bread, fillings, cheese, and vegetables. They also have some tried and true favorites as well a great soup of the day and desserts. After you turn in your order, you wait for about ten minutes. During this time, just head on over to the refrigerated drinks section and pick out your beverage. This place has all kinds of sodas from small beverage makers. You can eat at the back of the market where there is a tranquil and charming outdoor courtyard, or you can take your food elsewhere.

Yesterday, we went to Jackson Market, ordered one turkey/cheddar on ciabata to share, had a bag of Lays Wasabi potato chips and tried one of their new sodas:the Marquis 03 Energy Drink. It was buy one and get one free, so I got the Mango Ginger flavor and my husband got the berry flavored drink. The total tab came out to be around $11.00 for the two of us. It was a bit chilly to sit out in the courtyard, so we took our sandwich to the Carlson Park nearby, sat in the car and ate our lunch while watching kids play. It was a perfect lunch outing.

Jackson Market and Deli
4065 Jackson Ave.
Culver City, 90232

Griffith Observatory: Cheap Valentine Date, but Totally Hip

My daughter wanted to see a planetarium show with her girl friends at the Griffith Observatory. We haven't gone up to the Observatory in years, but thought it would be fun for the girls to go there. As we were driving her up to the planetarium on Vermont Ave., we noticed that traffic was horrendous. Next thing we knew, traffic cops placed cones on the street and blocked cars from going up to the observatory. They told us that we had to park in a parking lot close to the Greek Theatre and walk up. So we just dropped the girls off. My husband and I drove back to Los Feliz to have dinner. This is when we realized that it was Valentine's Day: Everyone was out dining, and many were heading up to the Observatory for some romantic star and vista gazing, hence that awful traffic.

Later in the evening after the traffic died down around 9:30 p.m., we went to pick up the girls from the observatory.  We walked around this  newly renovated jewel of an art deco building and enjoyed the night views up at the Griffith Observatory for the first time. No wonder this is a Valentine's Day destination. It costs nothing to park and walk around the observatory to enjoy the spectacular views. The building and its exhibits are free as well. At night, the Los Angeles basin city lights below Mount Hollywood glitter like jewels in the dark, competing with the stars above. The Samuel Oschin Planetarium show featuring a live narrator and awesome dome projection via a Zeiss star projector, costs only $5.00 for students and $7 for all others. My daughter, who saw the show "Centered in the Universe" declare that the show is mind blowingly spectacular, making her realize how small humans are in the universe. She now wants to learn about astronomy and work on animation for the Planetarium shows.

Griffith Observatory is an unconventional yet totally romantic place to celebrate Valentine's Day on the cheap. Is it hip enough for the hipsters? I'm not sure, but it sure is perfect. I'll make a note to come up here again soon. The Griffith Observatory at night should be on everyone's bucket list.

Griffith Observatory
2800 East Observatory Road
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(213) 473-0800

Unhipsters' Hangout: The Wonderful Food at Gonzalez Northgate Supermarket

Northgate Gonzalez Market used to be called Top Valu Market, 4700 Inglewood Blvd, Culver City. . Recently, the ownership changed and the price seems to be a tad more expensive than before, but the grocery selection here is amazing. It's a Mexican supermarket, so you can find plenty of ingredients I need to prepare Asian, Mexican, or other cuisines, as well as your typical American fare. Northgate carries a great selection of peppers, both fresh and dried. I love their jalapenos, poblanos, and bell peppers. 

All kinds of peppers.

  
There are also many interesting Latin American ingredients that I don't know how to use that I often wished someone at the market will start holding cooking classes to show shoppers like myself how to use the ingredients to prepare Mexican food. Every time I go to Gonzalez's I spend hours looking at the ingredients, and wondering if I dare prepare them without knowing how. Other times, I will just go up to a shopper who is looking at the same ingredient I'm looking at and ask her how she prepare those ingredients. Most of the time, I get some really helpful answers. Other times, the shopper can only speak to me in Spanish, and we'd look at each other and just laugh.

Tomatillows, Yucca, Carrots, Pinto Beans

Northgate has the freshest cilantros, scallions and radishes at reasonable prices. By reasonable, I mean at least 30% off the mainstream supermarket prices. Top Valu also sells a wide selection of prepared salsa, flan, guacamole, crema, and ceviche. It has a bakery with all kinds of bread. I receintly bought their corn bread. It's so moist inside that I can eat the whole thing by myself. I also always go for the four for a dollar bread rolls and use them to make subway style sandwiches. You simply can't beat the price and deliciousness.

Salsa, guacamole, and ceviche from Gonzalez' Northgate Market.

Unhipster's Hangout: Mel's Fish Shack in South LA.

Last weekend, my daughter at USC wanted to have a late lunch with us. Pleasantly surprised, I was intending to treat her to a nice sit down place near USC to sample a Restaurant Week menu in Los Angeles. The place I wanted to try was Govind Armstrong's Post and Beam Restaurant, but by the time we got there, the hoity toity upscale place was closed: It was the hiatus between lunch and dinner!* Too bad for Govind. I didn't quite like the food he had at his previous restaurant Table 8 on Melrose and wanted to give his food another chance. Oh well, next time.

      *(Aside) I tell you, you'll never find these breaks in a self respecting Chinese restaurant.
        They are always open at all hours all the time, including Christmas, Thanksgiving and New
        Year!

My daughter used Yelp and found Mel's Fish Shack. She said it's highly rated, so we decided to give it a try.  Mel's is located in a god forsaken area on Jefferson Blvd. where only rundown shacks and warehouses seem to abound. The street was deserted. I kept telling my daughter that she is not allowed to come out here by herself at night because it seemed too dangerous. Well, I digress.

Me's Fish Shack is in a little shack covered by a bold mural. Inside, you can only sit at a counter that seats maybe 10 customers all together. When we got there, there were five other people at the counter: three African American old timers, and a Latino couple. Everyone seemed to be waiting patiently for their food. We were told to go to this little window to place our order first and then head back two steps to sit at the counter. Most of the items involved fried seafood. We ordered the fish wrap, fried sole, and fried red snapper, a Yelp recommended potato salad and cole slaw. The cook, a big African American guy in dreadlocks and Jamaican knit hat was behind the counter cooking in plain view.  He burned the tortilla for the African American lady's fish wrap, so he had to put another one on the grill. She had to remind him before it almost got burned again. He thanked her for the reminder. It was hilarious. Everyone seemed to take the mishaps and wait in good humor.

When our food finally came, I found my grilled cajun seasoned fish wrap very tasty. Our battered red snapper and sole were fried to perfection. Oddly, the fried fish dishes came with a slice of supermarket bread instead of tortilla or rice. Everything hit a spot for us, but it's also possible that we were famished by 3:30 in the afteroon. Mel's tartar sauce was delicious and unique, but when we asked the chef what's in the tartar sauce, he said that if he told us, he'd have to kill us! He did give us a hint: dill. I think it's got Worcester sauce and garlic in mayo as well.

Our three lunches came out to be around $30. Not too bad for fresh fish and a fun experience exploring a new neighborhood in LA.

Mel's Fish Shack
4524 West Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016

(323) 732-6357